Cummins is fast master for Kaspro

Gideon Brooks

MICHAEL KASPROWICZ has backed Pat Cummins to show why he is the No.1 Test bowler in the world by leading the Aussies to a 2-0 Ashes lead at Lord’s.

Cummins has turned himself from injured crock into the spearhead of the most feared pace attack in world cricket.

And in doing so he has not only scaled the charts of the Test rankings but managed to keep some of the best bowlers in the world out of the side.

Kasprowicz played 38 Tests in over 10 years from 1996, including the fabled 2005 Ashes series in an era in which Aussie greats Brett Lee and Glenn Mcgrath dominated.

So he knows how the likes of Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood are feeling having been left out of the starting XI for the first Test at Edgbaston.

Natural

And while ‘Kaspro’ insisted it demonstrated the depth of Australia’s fast bowling stock, he maintained that the one quick who is untouchable in his current form is Cummins.

“It would be fantastic for him to stay in that No.1 spot in the rankings and to become that natural leader in the side,” said Kasprowicz.

“Obviously with all the other players there is lots of leadership, but I think with Pat Cummins and where he is at now, and his body and the way it is, it is wonderful to watch.

“Being one of those players through such a period of time, with the 20 years that I played first-class cricket and the 10 years I was able to keep coming back into and being involved in the Australian side, there has always been depth, so it has always been a given.”

Cummins burst on to the scene with a seven-wicket haul on his debut against South

Africa in Johannesburg in 2011.

But it has been a bumpy road since with a stress fracture of his back which led to five years out before his comeback in 2017.